Polystyrene Foam Shapes Up As Alternative For Building Walls

July 18, 1993|By Gene Austin Philadelphia Inquirer

Will your next house have walls of the same material used to make plastic coffee cups?

Polystyrene foam, reinforced with concrete, is shaping up as one of the most-likely-to-succeed alternative materials for building walls in a period of skyrocketing lumber prices and environmentalist movements to preserve and protect old forests.

''We use expanded polystyrene, exactly the same as a foam coffee cup but modified to be fire resistant,'' said Henry Guarriello Jr., corporate secretary of Reddi-Form Inc. of Fairless Hills, Pa., describing an interlocking-block system for building walls that is made by Reddi-Form.

Reddi-Form blocks are just one version of several plastic-foam products that can be used to build foundations and/or walls of houses and other buildings.

(In Central Florida, polystyrene has been used as a building material for many years, although not in foundations. Most frequently, polystyrene is used as a trim material. For example, polystyrene blocks can be cut in custom shapes and used as crown molding in place of wood. It can be painted or sprayed with a stuccolike material for a finished look.)

Reddi-Form is being used in the foundation and walls of an upscale speculative house currently under construction at Weatherfield, Pa.

''I think this could be a revolutionary form of construction,'' said Gordon Tracy, a partner in Jackson Tracy Custom Homes of Upper Makefield, which is building the Weatherfield home. ''There are countries where they don't have wood for construction. I think it has a lot of potential.''

Ted Jackson, the other partner in Jackson Tracy, agreed.

''With lumber prices soaring through the ceiling, innovative ways of construction are coming around, so we want to see what the public reaction is,'' he said.

Jackson said Reddi-Form also eliminates the need to bring in skilled contractors or masons to lay blocks or pour concrete foundations.

The Jackson Tracy house at Weatherfield is a 4,200-square-foot Cape Cod with four bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms and a two-car garage. It is expected to sell for more than $600,000, the builders said.

For foundation construction, Reddi-Form blocks with concrete cores cost about the same as conventional poured-concrete foundations, Guarriello said. When used instead of a conventional wood-frame wall, he said, the current cost of Reddi-Form is ''$1 to $2 per square foot'' higher than wood-frame construction, but he says Reddi-Form has advantages that make the extra cost worthwhile.

Guarriello said the foam-and-concrete walls also have excellent thermal insulating and noise-muffling ability.

''Reddi-Form makes a very quiet home,'' he said. ''Noise control is roughly twice that of a frame wall. You also have high strength and durability. There is never deterioration in the structure, no dry rot or termites. The house is also much, much tighter than frame construction.''

As the Reddi-Form blocks are stacked, steel reinforcing bars are added vertically and horizontally at intervals, but no mortar is used. Finally, concrete is pumped or poured into the hollow interior of the blocks, producing a strong structure with a built-in thermal-insulation value, mostly from the polystyrene, of nearly R-20. The insulating value can be raised even higher by various finishing methods used on the outside and inside of the walls.

Conventionally insulated walls generally have an insulating value of R-13 to R-19. The higher the R factor, the better the insulation.

Guarriello said ''about 200 structures of various types'' have been built with Reddi-Form blocks. ''We know of about half-a-dozen people who have built entire houses from them,'' he said. The blocks have been most popular so far in the West and Northwest, he said, and a chain of subcontracting manufacturers has been set up in various areas to make shipping easier.

Art Coppola Jr., who used Reddi-Form blocks to build the walls of his house in Vernon, N.J., said he ''hasn't found any problems'' with the blocks since moving in last fall.

The four-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath house is heated with an electric heat pump. Coppola said his November electric bill, including space heating, lights and all other uses of electricity, came to $87. He expects his annual energy costs, including heating and cooling, to be $700 to $900 per year ''when we get all the bugs out.''

Guarriello concedes there are several other companies turning out products somewhat similar to Reddi-Form. One of the rival firms, Lite-Form Inc. of Sioux City, Iowa, had its product used in the foundation of the Resource Conservation House, a demonstration house built of innovative products by the research center of the National Association of Home Builders in Bowie, Md.

Lite-Form uses two panels of rigid-foam insulation, separated by plastic spacers, rather than hollow blocks. When the panels' units are in place, the gap between panels is pumped full of concrete.